It's been one of those weeks where it goes by really fast but is filled with so much "stuff" that it really wore me down. Of note: I finished the first edit of my current novel (more on that this Monday in my writing progress post).

In the meanwhile, here's this weekend's list of cool and interesting stuff.

Let me say this: of the links below, if you do nothing else this fine Friday afternoon (or whatever time you're reading this), check out The Sun. The pictures are absolutely amazing.

Are You 24 Pages Away From a Multi-Book Contract?
When the struggling writer is pitching a book to an agent, ... [More]

It's Halloween. In honor of the holiday, Juno Books is offering a free download of five classic ghost stories.

The collection includes:

1. Let Loose, Mary Cholmondeley (1890)
2. The Striding-Place, Gertrude Atherton (1896)
3. The Lost Ghost. Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (1903)
4. Kerfol, Edith Wharton (1916)
5. Spunk, Zora Neale Hurston (1925)

Go download it, and have a Ghastly Halloween.

I'm almost done with the first edit of my fantasy novel, The Five Elements.

I'm on page 381 of 385, which gives me a completion percentage of 98.96%.

A bit of explaining: Last week I'd related how I had to essentially axed the last chapter, so instead of editing I've really been engaged in new writing. At that time I also came up with a guesstimate on the total page count, pegging it at 388. Now that I'm a little closer, I dropped that down to the magic number of 385. Bottom line: 4 more pages to go.

I probably would have had that last bit done if I hadn't been without my laptop all weekend.... [More]

Got some interesting links this time around, chief amongst them the one entitled The World's Best Paid Authors. It shouldn't be too difficult to figure out who #1 is.

Have a good weekend.

The World's Best Paid Authors
While the publishing industry has struggled to come up with a "Happily Ever After" storyline in recent years, there's still plenty of money to be made in the business of books.

Robot Repair Team Keeps Satellites Spinning
A lot of the satellites we depend on for modern life are in high orbits, beyond the reach of Earth-based repair missions. It would be prohibitively expensive, if not ... [More]